A Chinese orphan who was born with a disfiguring growth on her face called a Hemangioma has a new home and a new life in Georgia thanks to the concerted efforts of a nurse from the U.S. and an adoptive mother.

Reporter Jaime Dailey of Savannah's WTOC 11 provided the following details about the obstacle-laden international adoption:

It all started about two years ago when a nurse from Beaufort went to work at a Chinese orphanage for a few weeks. She saw baby Emma and knew she had some medical issues that needed addressing and made it her mission to help Emma get the treatment she needed with the hopes of giving her a better life. ...

"She was being put aside as a baby that was essentially going to die if not taken care of or at least grown up in an orphanage being kind of the rejected one," said Beaufort nurse, Mariah ByWater. ...

"She was deemed unadoptable because of her Hemangioma and so her paperwork was not even processed. She wasn't even in the system, adoption system," said [Emma's eventual adoptive mother, Colleen] Brant.

Emma officially became a member of the Brant family in May.

Labels: international

Posted By: Aspen/CRC